Changing habits, changing focus
Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay
A month ago, I passed a thousand published videos on YouTube with at least one daily upload for about 2,5 years. It was not only the video publishing that got put on hold, but also work. I am now on parental leave for the first time, and it has been very relaxing to combine it with a “social media de-tox”. The mind is a fascinating machine, and habit formation is basically how to rewire your brain into certain patterns, depending on what you want to achieve. The things you do every day become insanely powerful, no matter how small they are. It all adds up exponentially in the long run. It is a good thing that the video production gets some rest for now. I am way too busy creating new habits with my boys.
Honestly, I am quite surprised by how easy it was to release a habit that had been going strong every day since late 2019. The first couple of days felt extremely strange, but after a week I didn’t think much about it. There is an interesting takeaway here. Habit formation can be rapid, even instantaneous if your will is strong, and you are determined. Literally, change can occur in a day. To publish 1000 videos and then go back to not publish is to establish a new habit of not producing videos. The crucial difference is that the new habit is about removing actions from my life, not adding more.
Consequentially, you are probably better off by always first removing habits, before attempting to establish a new one. You must make space to accommodate the new habit in your life, and that cannot be done if your schedule is full. A room can only hold so much stuff before it is full. To buy a new sofa, you must get rid of the old one. And this is also the exact reason why so many people fail at their new year’s resolutions. They fail to remove something else before “getting a new sofa”. It simply cannot be done. They can perhaps keep up the new year’s resolution habit for a week or two, but then it is game over. Get rid of something first, and then aim at something you really want in your life. With that approach, failure is all but impossible.
In my case, I have created some freedom for myself. A bit of choice, by pausing the daily videos. What is absolutely necessary now, is to figure out what to aim at – Exactly. Without a doubt, I will keep on doing acoustic videos, because they are effortless for me by now. But I need to narrow it down a lot more. Who is my target group? What is the problem I am trying to solve? When and how often should I publish? Where should I publish? I now clearly understand that “the algorithm” strongly promotes focus. If you drift all over the place – like I do – you won’t get much traffic heading your way. On LinkedIn, I only publish acoustic themed educational videos, which work very well. The same videos on YouTube doesn’t get much traffic. I have a gut feeling that if I start a new YouTube channel with only acoustic videos and nothing else, the numbers might start to reflect what I have seen on LinkedIn. And I can keep my existing YouTube channel as a more music-oriented channel, which seems to work much better. Again, Focus is the key.
August will be a restart and reboot. For now, in July, I will reflect, re-think and be together my boys. And maybe it’s not about changing focus. It’s probably about increasing focus.